Worldnutdaily Declares War on Christmas!

Well isn’t this interesting? The Worldnutdaily has apparently declared a war on Christmas with an “exclusive” video from Richard Rives, president of Wyatt Archaeological Research (yes, Ron Wyatt’s fraudulent group), declaring that Christmas is a pagan holiday that should not be celebrated by Christians.

I can’t embed the video for some reason, but Rives explains that the Romans celebrated the birthday of Sol Invictus, the sun god, on December 25th. He also points out that many Christian groups have outlawed the celebration of Christmas for that reason, including the Puritans of Massachusetts in the mid-1600s, and that it has historically been condemned as a pagan holiday by several denominations, including Methodists, Baptists and Presbyterians.

The amusing thing, of course, is that Rives is right about all this. Christmas was indeed a pagan holiday long before it was dedicated to Christ, as was Easter. Ironically, the only ones actually declaring a war on Christmas are Christians, not atheists. So I’m sure the American Family Association and Liberty Counsel will be adding the Worldnutdaily to their “naughty” list for declaring this war on Christmas, right? Right? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

I was brought up Methodist and no one ever suggested that xmas was anything other than a xian holiday.

http://dododreams.blogspot.com/ John Pieret

And don’t forget that all the “Christmas” tree the Religious Right wants to put up everywhere with taxpayer money was a hangover from Druid tree worship in Germany that made it to America only after Queen Victoria’s German husband, Prince Albert, made it popular in Great Britain … durn furriners!

mildlymagnificent

Who said Cromwell’s Puritan mates were dead?

These prune-faced killjoys just keep on keeping on.

http://www.holytape.etsy.com holytape

Who cares about Christmas? What I really want to know is if I can celebrate National Zucchini Bread Day on April 25th and still be a good Christian. Because if I can’t, then screw you baby Jesus.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1017276335 Strewth

Ow, I think I pulled my brain. I wonder if we’re on the verge of seeing the monolithic ‘American Christiandom’ disintegrating back into a mass of squabbling sects.

http://www.facebook.com/rkhboettger rolfboettger

They’re just now figuring this out over at the WND? No wonder their other reporting is always so accurate as well.

raven

I was brought up Methodist and no one ever suggested that xmas was anything other than a xian holiday.

No one is sure when jesus was born.

It was probably around 4 BC. It was probably in the spring.

The early xians just arbitrarily took over the pagan year end holidays for PR reasons. They stole Xmas from the pagans.

The pagans are stealing it back.

baal

I’m sure WND will have an “all tru xians have all the elements of christmas and they are all totally xtian” story next week. Consistency is not a hobgoblin of their minds. I’m tempted, of course, to ask the hobgoblin what is the consistency of a mind at WND.

raven

Christmas was indeed a pagan holiday long before it was dedicated to Christ,

as was Easter.

Easter was also a pagan holiday, named after the Germanic goddess of spring and fertility. All that stuff about eggs, bunnies, and baby chickens is not found in the bible.

Don’t forget the War on Easter. It will be here before you know it.

There really is one, mostly waged by the same xians that are engaged in the War on Xmas.

johnmanderson

Growing up fifty years ago in Scotland Christmas wasn’t really celebrated as a holiday. We used to like to keep our pagan winter festival properly pagan in those days.

http://helives.blogspot.com heddle

Every pastor I have ever had taught that Christmas is a pagan holiday. The usual advice was that we should feel free to celebrate it or not–and if we do we should celebrate it as a pagan holiday. Which is exactly what we do at chez heddle.

Some of the most beloved christian christmas songs are not even about christmas. Joy to the World, (not the three dog night version) for example, is postmillennial hymn about the second advent, not the first.

The bible instructs Christians to celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus, not his birth.

grumpyoldfart

Jeremiah chapter ten has a few things to say about trees taken inside the house and decorated with gold and silver.

Also, during the 1600s in England when Christmas was banned, most families had at least one member who was born on December 25th – so if the church police came knocking, it was a birthday party, not a Christmas party.

Michael Heath

heddle writes:

Every pastor I have ever had taught that Christmas is a pagan holiday. The usual advice was that we should feel free to celebrate it or not–and if we do we should celebrate it as a pagan holiday.

Did/do these churches put on Christmas-themed events during regular meeting times and perhaps special events, e.g., a Christmas Eve event?

Do you think that the celebration of Christmas is pervasive enough amongst evangelical churches that their celebrating this event in their churches from a religious perspective is a defining attribute of U.S. evangelical Christianity?

http://www.gregory-gadow.net Gregory in Seattle

Let us keep the Sol in Solstice!

For the first few centuries of Christendom, Christmas was not observed at all: the focus was exclusively on Jesus’ death and resurrection, not his birth. In the east, the early life of Jesus was observed as the Epiphany, which celebrated all of the times that Jesus was “revealed to the world” including his birth, the visit of the Magi, this baptism and the Transfiguration.

The feast of the Nativity appeared around 400 CE, but remained a very minor observance until the High Middle Ages. Even then, it was far more prominent as a day of feasting and merriment within a long season of feasting and merriment. The religious aspects did not come to the fore until the 1500, when Protestants objected to feasting and merriment during the Reformation and Catholics responded in the Counter-Reformation by making it a high holy day of obligation. The institution of Advent was created by the Roman Catholics to put a penitential damper on the celebrations leading up to Christmas.

The modern celebration of Christmas did not exist until the early 1800s, and even that was primarily of the feasting and merriment variety with a healthy dose of unmitigated capitalism, rather than religious observance.

http://www.gregory-gadow.net Gregory in Seattle

If anyone is interested, I highly recommend The Battle for Christmas by Stephen Nissenbaum. It documents the creation of modern Christmas in the US.

davem

All the old festivals were held to celebrate the coming of longer nights, ie at the Winter solstice. Since then, the Earth has wobbled a bit, and the shortest day is now the 21st Dec. Time to seize the moment, and abandon Xmas for the 21st. After all, it’s real reason for the season. Also, I have it on authority (the Internet) that the end of the world is coming this 21st. Time to celebrate like never before!

I found it when I was researching information on Saturnalia for my Latin classes. Some of my more open-minded students quickly saw the relationships between the ancient festivals that we saw in our studies of ancient cultures and the traditions that they had grown up observing. The xtian students never seemed to catch on, much to the amusement of their peers.

Ichthyic

heddle writes:

Every pastor I have ever had taught that Christmas is a pagan holiday. The usual advice was that we should feel free to celebrate it or not–and if we do we should celebrate it as a pagan holiday.

there goes Heddle, assuming his experience speaks for the multitudes.

ever get tired of that narcissism?

maybe take a gander at the comments earlier in this very thread, like this one by Drew:

I was brought up Methodist and no one ever suggested that xmas was anything other than a xian holiday.

Ichthyic

…btw, I was brought up Presbyterian, and my experiences of what they taught me were exactly the same as Drew’s.

I didn’t find out about the pagan history behind “Christmas” until I was in high school.

http://helives.blogspot.com heddle

Hmm. I give my personal inexperience in #11, never once claiming to speak for “the multitudes” and the idiot troll Ichthyic writes:

there goes Heddle, assuming his experience speaks for the multitudes.

ever get tired of that narcissism?

and then follows up, in #19 with his personal experience on the subject.

Ever get tired of being a dumbass?

http://helives.blogspot.com heddle

Michael Heath,

Did/do these churches put on Christmas-themed events during regular meeting times and perhaps special events, e.g., a Christmas Eve event?

My current church does have an unofficial congregational Christmas party–as in one family throws it every year but it is not “sanctioned”. Is that what you mean?

Do you think that the celebration of Christmas is pervasive enough amongst evangelical churches that their celebrating this event in their churches from a religious perspective is a defining attribute of U.S. evangelical Christianity?

Yes.

hunter

Given that the early church was notorious for co-opting Pagan holidays (in this case, Dec. 25), festivals (ditto, Saturnalia and/or Yule), symbolism (and again, Christmas trees and wreaths, caroling, gift-giving), and even gods and goddesses (the Irish Brigit became St. Bridget, while the Horned God — who shows up from the British Isles to India — became the Devil), and sacred sites (too many to enumerate), does anyone even wonder?

cry4turtles

Why do they not tire of this war on xmas crap? I’m tired of it, and I get a kick out of it!! (Personal experience alert)

hunter

cry4turtles @ 23: Because it’s their time-tested means of playing the victim card — and where would they be without the victim card?